BlackBerry’s finest really is the business

BlackBerry Key2 £579 ★★★★★

WE’VE reached the stage where Apple can introduce genuinely bad features on iPhone, and companies will scramble to copy them anyway – like iPhone X’s horrid ‘notch’ in the top of the screen.

Apple could probably introduce a phone with a slot to toast crumpets, and engineers in China would immediately get to work on their own Android versions.

So in a world of iPhone-like black slabs, the Blackberry Key2 is a real eye-catcher. Of course, I imagine millennials will stare at it as if looking at a Stone Age axe head, thinking: ‘Did people really once use these?’

It’s a shame, as it’s easily the best BlackBerry yet. The aluminiumclad device feels superbly businesslike, and the keys are 20 per cent bigger than last year’s model, so typing is faster.

Recovering ‘CrackBerry’ addicts will find long-dormant thumb muscles reawakening, and will suddenly find themselves using correct punctuation on WhatsApp.

Like other new BlackBerry devices, it runs Android, with a few distinctive tweaks – including BlackBerry’s ‘Hub’ app, which sorts all your email, phone calls, calendar entries and so on into one place. Basically, it feels exactly like a classic BlackBerry, just inside an app.

You can launch apps direct from the keyboard (hold down ‘F’ for Facebook, for instance), and the camera is a big upgrade over last year’s KEYone.

The odd screen shape will make young people shudder, I suppose (it’s all wrong for Instagram) – but then they probably fled at the first sight of the keyboard.